Search our blog

Killer whale sightings near Shetland

With killer whale sightings near Shetland becoming increasingly popular in recent years, we thought we’d share a great photo posted by the Shetland Wildlife Facebook page from last week – Click through to see the fantastic shot of a killer whale surfacing off Ronas Voe by John Lowrie Irvine. It won’t disappoint!

On the topic of killer whales, Chris Gommersall, who writes for the Shetland Nature blog, last week shared his account on seeing the impressive water based mammals off the coast of Shetland whilst on a fishing trip:

Our second haul is more productive, from my point of view, and as the nets are being cleaned after all the fish have been pumped aboard, I spot the distinctive dorsal fin of a bull orca, closing in fast. It’s soon clear that he’s not alone, and we have a small pod of about a dozen orca around the boat. By now it’s about 5pm, and the whales stay with us for 20 minutes or so, occasionally spy-hopping for the briefest of moments, and not quite posing long enough for me to train my lens on them. As we trail the net and pick up speed, stray fish fall away and this prompts a bit more activity from the orcas, including some breaching. I photograph what I can, using two camera bodies – one fitted with a 200-400mm zoom lens, the other with a 70-200mm.

Off course killer whales aren’t the only animals you can see near Shetland – from puffins, seals, Shetland ponies and everything in between, check out our Shetland wildlife page to find out why Shetland is regarded a nature lover’s paradise!